CS Lewis' Concern

KNOWING & DOING A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind This article originally appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Knowing & Doing. C.S. LEWIS INSTITUTE C.S. Lewis’s Concern for the Future of Humanity by James M. Houston Senior Fellow, C.S. Lewis Institute Founder of Regent College (Vancouver, B.C.) and Professor of Spiritual Theology (retired) etween 1947 and 1956, I was privileged the relentless growth of “tech- to meet with C.S. Lewis in a group convened by nique for technique’s sake.” BNicholas Zernov, Spalding Lecturer of Russian History at Oxford. I shared an apartment with Nicho- Why Myth? las for seven years, and we entertained the group in One early reviewer described his our home together. After he published his novel, Till novel Till We Have Faces as “bril- We Have Faces, I asked Lewis on one occasion, of all the liantly offbeat.” Only Chad Walsh, books he had written, what did he consider the most in the New York Herald Tribune, important Christian message he had given? With no declared it to be “the most signif- hesitation, his reply was, “the three lectures I gave at icant and triumphant work that James M. Houston Newcastle on The Abolition of Man, in 1942-43, togeth- Lewis has yet produced.” But er with my recent novel, Till We Have Faces” (1956). I Lewis was already dead by then. The deliberate choice think he already sensed disappointment that the latter of pagan mythology as his genre in his novel Till We novel was being scarcely noticed. Certainly, there was Have Faces was to suggest that a good classical pagan no reprint as long as he lived—another seven years. was closer to the apostle Paul than a liberal secular- Nor did his three lectures to the Faculty of Education ist is today. For, at least, there was the dominating in the University of Newcastle make any headlines. If presence of the “sacred,” the awareness of good and anything, they seemed an exaggeration on the threat evil, the sense of mystery, an after-life, and of moral of technology in society. Only later, did the popular accountability. Myth is associated with the lack of book by C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures, as that of science differentiation, of earth and heaven, man and beast, and the humanities, arouse more popular debate. with scope for the heroic which leaves the human and Part of the apathy over Lewis’s topics was the reputed the divine indeterminate. This is cause for chaos and traditional bias of Oxford colleges as the bastion of the violence. But at least mythopoeia leaves space to see classical humanities, unlike Cambridge, with science that things are not as they might appear, for multiple having only marginal influence until World War II. So layers of meanings, and thus always a challenge to our it could be argued that Lewis’s science fiction, espe- over-confident claims to “know” what is “reality.” It cially That Hideous Strength, was what an entrenched, is a sphere beloved of the literary critic. So it was left traditional Oxford don would write about; the intru- to later novelists such as William Golding and Saul sion of young science fellows entering into college life. Bellow to complain against the loss of all mystery in Ironically, Winston Churchill selected an Oxford sci- a technical society, because with this loss no “space” entist, Lord Cherwell, to intensify the role of science was allowable to what is indeterminate in myth. Yet into warfare, as it had never been exploited before. we cannot be “human” without it. England might not nationally have survived without In this context, often in our discussions, Lewis this new penetration of technology into society. But would speak about the tension required to see through Lewis was aware and alarmed by the wholesale accep- the clean window, without losing the perspective of tance of technology. He saw it was becoming a new also looking at the view. A culture dominated by psy- threat to our humanum. As he observed: “Each new cho-analysis, would end up seeing nothing. You sim- power won by man is a power over man. Each advance ply cannot afford to explain everything away. So Lewis leaves him weaker as well as stronger.”1The notion of would challenge us today, how much mystery has “Man’s Power over Nature turns out to be a power been lost in a secular society? As I write, it is ironic exercised by some men over other men with Nature as that in the same month (January 2006), we have the its instrument.” It remained later for Jacques Ellul to Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI on the love of God, further see the entrapment of modern society within and the National Geographic article on the brain 2 C.S. Lewis’s Concern for the Future of Humanity chemistry of love, as a clash of two mindsets, about voices within and circumstances without, and above the realm of God, and the materialist realm of sex, that all, by the personal transformation of one so closely is of “mystery” and of “no mystery!” beloved, as Psyche was to Orual, or as Joy Davidman In his novel then, Till We Have Faces, Lewis adopts became for Lewis, to whom he dedicated the novel. the universal awareness of “the numinous” in primi- When Lewis first tried to compose his poem of Cu- tive religion. This is where humans cannot breach the pid or eros and Psyche or agape, of what is humanly mystery of divinity by ordinary perception. Lewis desirous and of what is divinely given, he states, takes the seriousness of myth as expressive of a great sovereign, unconditional Reality at the core of all I ended my first book, with the words ‘no answer.’ I things. Myth, too, is the way the shadow of the inex- know now O Lord, why you utter no answer. You pressible can be vocalized, like beams of light from an yourself are the answer. Before your face questions die immense but far distant source. There are several truly away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, human themes of myth that Lewis sees: 1) humanity words, words; to be led out to battle against other should worship; 2) human dependency is upon God words. Long did I hate you, long did I fear you.2 (the gods); 3) scape-goating is basic to human fallen- ness; 4) blood is the appropriate symbol of life and its Till We Have Faces is then descriptive of the frustra- sacrifice; 5) it is appropriate one should die for the sake tions we share within our natural, human condition, of the people; 6) consolation is found in the religious until we meet the face of God, in life through death life, whether symbolized by temple or other sacred and resurrection. It is a life journey. site; 7) bearing one another’s burdens, is expressive Central to the plot of the novel is Orual, the king’s of being a personal being; 8) sins of jealousy, envy, oldest daughter, with her two younger stepsisters, and pride destroy relationships, human and divine; Redival, who never understands Psyche, the young- 9) redemption requires dealing with the past, as well est sister. But Orual believes she loves Psyche dearly. as the present, such as is evidenced in family legacies; Changing emotional triangles within the palace and 10) re-birth requires a willing death. As Lewis stated, royal family generate much of the story-plot. At the myth became fact in the Incarnation. Now as myth heart of it all is Orual’s misconstrual of “love” for transcends thought, Incarnation transcends “myth” Psyche, her adored sister, and of Psyche’s contrasted as indeed it transcends “fact”. So Lewis concluded we understanding of love. Early on, Psyche confesses to ought not to be ashamed of the mythical radiance cast Orual, that all her old longings were removed; for ev- over our theological faith, indeed of our wonder and erything before was a dream .3 Then she invites her joy. Scholars are reluctant to accept such premises, sister to come to her—for she is not her own.4 Orual since myth has been traditionally associated with un- responds confusedly, because she sees that Psyche is reality, whereas for Lewis it is necessary for awe and teaching her about kinds of love she did not know.5Lat - worship, of what is beyond our ken. er, when she meets again her sister, who she thought was dead, now alive again, Orual confesses that she The Novel as Autobiographical was telling her about so many wonders. They made The novel is, of course, Lewis’s rewriting of the story her feel she had been wrong all her life. So everything of Cupid and Psyche in the Latin novel, Metamorpho- had to be begun all over again.6 Then at the end of the ses, or The Golden Ass, by Lucius Apuleius Platonicus. narration, as told by Orual, she says: “Psyche, never Lewis was haunted by the myth ever since he read again will I call you mine; but all there is of me shall be it in preparation for his entrance exam to University yours.” Now Orual realized she never had one selfless College, Oxford, in 1917. Following on the poems of thought of her. She was a craver of selfish desires, an William Morris and Robert Bridges, Lewis began to erotic indeed!7 compose an unfinished poem on the myth in 1923, As every Christian learns with the experience called Dymer.

Load more